Games and meets are rescheduled by the ADs to find the best available date. ADs have to fit in games that work best with programs and don't interfere with scheduled events.

"You're sharing gyms with other groups and teams and clubs," Lauscher said, "so we throw that dates back and forth until we come to a compromise with a date that will work for both of us and go from there."

That's OK for some sports, but 1A and 2A girls basketball have fewer dates available to play before the postseason begins.

"It's probably not ideal for the coaches, but we have two weeks left for girls basketball," Fransen said. "We gotta go with what we have."

There are times, depending on the district, that games are played despite school being canceled for the day. Last week, Lutheran and Winnebago boys basketball played, even though Winnebago didn't have school.

"We know if Lutheran didn't have school, they were not going to play the game," Winnebago AD Will Hartje said. "So it was a last-minute thing. We didn't have school because the roads were impassible. But their roads were more plowed in Rockford, so they could still get to school.

"We decided, if we could still have this game as scheduled, we should do it because of the time crunch of fitting so many games in a short time."

Other districts allow some wiggle room, with games being played despite canceled classes.

"My superintendent has told me that if we had to play a game on certain nights, we could play if it warmed up within the day," Le-Win AD Jim McCabe said. "It obviously hasn't done that this week, but we could play if we didn't have school. It's not really a hard, fast, in-writing rule. But it's a guideline that we don't play if we don't have school."

"There's not necessarily a policy on that," Hartje said. "I run everything through my superintendent to see what he wants to do and I give recommendations. We all work pretty well together."

Regional girls basketball begins Feb. 10 for 1A and 2A girls, with 3A and 4A beginning the next Monday.

"We've managed to get everything made up to this point barring any future cancellations," Lauscher said, "but we're just trying to get ahead of the game.

"We've got regional coming up for basketball and sectionals, so there's a window closing in that we have to get these games in by a certain time."

Teams are starting to feel the pinch, with back-to-back games increasing. The Lena-Winslow girls basketball team, for example, is scheduled for three straight games by the end of the week.

"We're playing three games this weekend. Thursday, Friday, Saturday," McCabe said. "We didn't want to do it, but there's conference games, so we have to play it."

Le-Win already canceled its nonconference game against Durand, which won't be made up.

If key games aren't made up before the postseason, they may have to be made up during the playoffs or after a team's exit from it.

"If we had to make something up going into the postseason, we would do that," Lauscher said. "But we haven't had that situation yet. Hopefully we don't have to get there.

"Also, the IHSA, if need be and it's rare, but they do allow participation on Sundays now. That's the worse-case scenario, but you have to get the games in before the start of the state series. I don't envision that, but that's an option schools would have."